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Philippines and China Dispute Visit

MANILA — The Philippines and China, already locked in a territorial dispute, engaged in a diplomatic tussle on Thursday. The Philippine president canceled a visit to a trade fair in China after being told to stay away, while China insisted that it never invited him in the first place.

A spokesman for the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs, Raul Hernandez, said President Benigno S. Aquino III had decided not to make a one-day visit to the China-Asean Expo scheduled for next Tuesday in the southern city of Nanning.

Mr. Hernandez said China had invited the Philippines to send a high-level delegation to the trade fair a few months ago. After Mr. Aquino said Wednesday that he would go, word came from China later in the day that he should not attend the event, Mr. Hernandez said. In a statement, Mr. Hernandez said Mr. Aquino had decided not to go “taking into consideration China’s request for the president to visit China at a more conducive time.”

A spokesman for the office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing had not invited Mr. Aquino to attend the expo. “China never extended an invitation to the Philippine president,” it said in a statement sent to The Associated Press. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr. Aquino said, “You may be surprised, I will travel next week. It’s quite a long trip to China. I will leave at 5 in the morning and will be back at 5 in the afternoon.”

The Philippines is this year’s “country of honor” at the trade fair, which takes place in China every year to highlight trade exchanges between Beijing and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

The Philippines and China have been embroiled in increasingly antagonistic territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Last year, China seized a shoal near the northwestern coast of the Philippines, and this year it demanded that the Philippine Navy withdraw from Second Thomas Shoal farther south.